Best film of the summer

Rating: 9/10 (11 August 2003)

Speaking as someone who was raised on horror films, 28 Days Later is definitely more then your average gore fest. 28 Days Later is the best film of the summer thanks to the great acting of the entire cast (especially Cillian Murphy and Brendan Gleeson), a great plot and wonderful cinematography. In one of the opening scenes rather then just telling the audience that London is deserted, the director Danny Boyle actually showed them with stunning establishing shots.
Aside from just being a great film, 28 Days Later raised an interesting question about society. Within a month of the new society being formed by a group of soldiers, it had begun to repeat the same flaws as the old society. This can be illustrated by the attempted rape of Selena and Hannah and the attempted murder of Jim.
Another great touch on the part of the film makers was the idea of having the virus totally take control of the victim within 20 seconds, leaving out the tired old plot twist of having a main character infected but not telling the other members of the surviving group.
Like any film there were some problems, mainly the lack of information given to the audience about the virus, but since the story is told through people with little information themselves one could argue that the audience was given as much information as the people trying to survive. All things considered, this was a great film and I think that once this summer is over people will look back and realize that it was the best picture of the summer and the best horror film in years.